The Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater has a rich, lustrous
tradition dating back to 1958, but on Sunday it chose to show three
of its more recent works  it being just 14 years since the oldest
was created. All three were by American choreographers of note, and
each had a distinct flavour.

The
company opened with Grace by Ronald K. Brown. The curtain opens
to a solitary female figure dressed in white dancing to gospel music
amid fog. Linda-Denise Fisher-Harrell, who has both beautiful extension
and commanding stage presence, danced an alternatively frenetic and
smooth piece  moved seemingly not by the music, but by her own
innate desires to move.

This combination of frenzied and immensely controlled
dancing was a signature of the piece  with dancers alternating
between the two depending on the mood. At times the dancers seemed almost
possessed  dancing so frenetically that they appeared to be captivated
by the movement equivalent of speaking in tongues. The energy on stage
was indeed so high that at times it touched even the audience 
enveloping the spectators in its infectious, swaying rhythms.

The costumes, in red and white, echoed this spirituality
 at times reminiscent of hell and heaven, at times redolent of
the blood and water of spiritual ceremonies. As the piece moved on,
the dancers costumed gradually changed from red to white - as if the
dance had purified them. The final moment  in which the entire
cast walked, into the darkness dressed only in white, had a pale finality.

The music moved from gospel to electro jazz and then
to traditional jazz, each instilled with its own spirituality and rhythm.
Yet, as the piece moved through there was little interaction between
the dancers, who kept a chaste distance from one another. The groups
split into small sections, each with their own internal logic, yet without
contact between the dancers. What interaction there was, was in echoing
or mirroring each other's actions  including a strong section
to the corner where the male dancers stomped, turned and kicked in unison.
This section, abundant with masculine energy, brought the house down
 not least because in unison there was also individuality, as
the distinctive bodies of Anthony Burrell, Samuel Deshauteurs, Abdur-Rahim
Jackson, Guillermo Asca, Clifton Brown and Kevin E. Boseman, each interpreted
the dance, and its rhythms in their own distinctive manner.

The
second piece, which opened with a pile of beings on the floor, was a
thought provoking dance set to limited music, and spoken word. Themed
around urban isolation, the desolation of the environment and homelessness,
Shelter by Jawole Willa Jo Zollar was desolate and moving by
parts.

By limiting the music to a drum beat and occasional
cymbals for punctuation, the choreographer allowed the speaking voice
to become almost instrumental. As its cadences rose and fell, so did
the rhythm of the drum and the dancing bodies, until a sense of unity
between the three was created. The brain can be seen to be stimulated
visually through movement, orally through music, and intellectually
through words and ideas. In reducing the oral stimulation through paring
down the music, the piece allowed the intellectual and visual stimulus
to be more powerful.

With the cast dressed in khaki combat pants and camouflage
tops, the piece explored support and separation, individuation and community.
Again, there was little contact between the dancers  with the
distance and impersonality of the urban environment reflected in the
fact that the only touch between the company came when one of the dancers
fell  to be caught by the rest of the cast. Or when they all ended
in a heap on the floor, discarded by themselves and others. It was that
moment that can only be found in a city, where one is constantly jostled
by others, and yet can long for a meaningful human touch. It reminded
me of Baldwin's vision of New York, or the desperate worlds of Aldous
Huxley and George Orwell.

The words of the piece examined homelessness through
the speaker's relationship with a homeless man which instigated his
fear of homelessness  and pointed out how easy it is to slip through
the community's flimsy safety net. To an American audience, conscious
of the current state of the economy, this is a message that was both
timely and painful, though how it would have played out in the economic
heyday of 1988 when the piece was created is another matter. Other messages
in the piece may appear to some to be outdated  but to me, there
was an added poignancy in the fact that no matter how many times these
statements (regarding endangered species, destruction of the world,
the plight of black children in America) have been delivered in the
last 14 years, they have gone if not unheeded, not acted upon.

I found the piece powerfully danced by the all-male
cast, with powerful ensemble and solo performances. The fluidity of
the movement of the company is extraordinary  and their extensive
dance vocabulary allows many moments to transcend a sense of conscious
dance. The ability of the men to move rapidly but sinously through the
dance, to move between moods seamlessly, to connect with each other
in half hearted yet intentional manners, served the choreography well.
It is to their credit that no one dancer stood above the crowd 
not all companies call pull off an ensemble piece of such a high standard.

As the piece ended, with the gradual dying of the light
and fading away of the men on stage as the voice questioned what the
future held for mankind, I found myself moved by the powerful developnment
of sound and rhythm, voice and body. There was little shelter from the
questions the piece raised.

The final piece, by Billy Wilson was entitled The
Winter in Lisbon but appeared anything but wintery as the stage
came alight with multi-coloured florescent costumes and upbeat jazz.
In
this work, Wilson's Broadway credentials were well displayed, with both
chorus and solo performances that reflected his interest in traditional
music hall. There was also a fusion, with some parts of the dance more
jazz based  and girls in multi-coloured dresses dancing fast jazz
with the abandon of the 1950s.

The piece moved from spectacular set pieces, to an impressive
quintet which examined the poses and rituals of courtship, with the
three male and two female dancers flirting coyly and then more salaciously
with each other. After which, Glenn A. Simms and Renee Robinson in the
section entitled "Lisbon" danced with the intimacy and understanding
of a real relationship  their section sizzling with sexiness but
also softness, in contrast to the fun war-of-the-sexes that had come
before.

The piece finished with the entire company dancing a
large set piece to Dizzy Gillespie's Manteca. It was sensational
 a real spectacle of colour, and energy and life. So endemic was
that energy that even the curtain call was to the music, with the audience
clapping along as the dancers took their bows. It left the audience
rocking up the aisles on their way home, and was a smiling end to an
evening that had provoked a number of emotions.

I found the dancers of the Alvin Ailey extraordinary
in their ability to allow the choreography to speak through their bodies,
and the diversity in mood and feeling of the evening was a great testament
to their adaptability and accomplishment as dancers.